Year three of Cuttin in Line debuts today as Baylor Athletics is on the verge of unprecedented exposure, success, hype, hope and after June's events within the conference, a new sense of in-your-face significance.

A message has been handed to the 10 soon-to-be remaining members of this conference for the upcoming football and men's basketball season, it's put up or shut up time.

For Baylor Athletics, it's time to Rise Up.

Thankfully, there truly is no better time than now for the stakes to have been raised for Baylor. With heightened pressure and expectations on the school's two most profit-making sports, the Bears are in excellent position to answer the call, earn their place in the future of the Big 12 and be a proven commodity in the NCAA's eyes.

Art Briles has completed Baylor's highest ranked recruiting class since old Southwest Conference days (following an equally strong class in 2009), Robert Griffin appears healthy and this year's offense promises to be more high-scoring than any Baylor offense in recent memory.

As for hoops, well, I'm really not even sure to start. Earlier today it was announced that ESPN's College Gameday would be coming to Waco on March 5th as part of Baylor's season finale festivities before tipping off against UT that night. Baylor Basketball has officially arrived. I'll have plenty more to salivate about as we get closer to November and the season opener.

It's a great time to be a Baylor fan.

So as the current student body turns the corner from Welcome Week to the first few days of class (or the continued delay in purchasing textbooks), and the third and all-too-crucial third year of the Art Briles era is set to kick off, my weekly effort on BaylorBears.com returns.

For those familiar with this page, welcome back! Thank you so much for reading, sharing and helping to make this a truly unique forum on our Alma Mater's official athletics website. As a seven year-removed Alumnus writing on possibly my deepest passion, I am honored to share this page with actual talented journalists and higher ups in the athletic department. I have no idea how I got here either.

For those new to the page, I welcome you as well and invite you back week after week here until April. For the next 35 weeks or so I'll do my best to sum up my emotion as a diehard living and dying with these two teams from what amounts to another country for most BU grads (Missouri).

My `unconventional take' will ratchet up next week as we near closer to kickoff against Sam Houston State. For now, let's enjoy the hype and hope.